The Traitor's Declaration
Arendt's declaration was followed by a dreadful silence that settled over the courtroom like a shroud.
As if his killing intent had proved contagious, not a single spectator dared to open their mouth. It was none other than Duke Lancelot who finally took charge of the situation, having realized that this was no time to be debating guilt or innocence.
“...For now, return the criminal to the underground dungeon. The deliberations will resume later.”
“Yes, sir!”
At the resounding reply, soldiers swarmed forward and seized Arendt by both arms. Arendt yielded to their grip without resistance, as though he had simply finished playing his part. Only after he had vanished completely did short sighs begin to drift through every corner of the courtroom.
“They told us he was a degenerate, but...”
“I never dreamed he'd be that reckless.”
After those particularly audible laments, the murmuring gradually swelled. Duke Lancelot turned his gaze toward Laios.
“Commander Laios. What are your thoughts on the matter?”
“...”
Laios, lost in deliberation, could not answer so easily. His blue eyes remained calm, but he could do nothing about the turmoil that flickered faintly beneath them.
Before he could weigh in, however, an answer came from another quarter — from an elderly noble who had been barely restraining his fury for some time now.
“Do we truly need further deliberation to deal with such an insolent whelp? He must be sent to the executioner's block. Passing internal imperial intelligence to an outside spy is a grave crime in itself!”
“But it is equally true that we cannot simply dismiss what he said.”
Duke Lancelot silenced him, quiet but resolute. As if to echo the Duke's sentiment, another voice joined in — a young woman's this time.
“I agree that he was insolent... but he has a point. Given how things stand, we must consider every variable now.”
Every gaze in the chamber turned toward the speaker. It was Diana de Barac, Commander of the 2nd Knight Order.
“Sir Diana.”
“Setting everything else aside, we should look only at what's certain.”
At the Duke's summons, Diana gave a gracious smile.
“Sir Arendt von Eckhart is himself asking for the chance to speak. Perhaps we really did move too hastily, just as he claims. At the very least, we can afford to hear him out. We stand to lose nothing by it, after all.”
“I find myself in agreement.”
The middle-aged man seated beside her now took his turn. Sweeping a hand down his meticulously groomed beard and affecting a grave expression, he was none other than Kendrick von Leandros, Commander of the 1st Knight Order.
“I never imagined things would unfold like this. The only reason we acted as we did was our belief that nothing could be gained from the man — and that very premise has just been turned on its head.”
“B-but there's a chance Arendt von Eckhart was simply lying, isn't there?”
With both knight commanders in agreement, someone asked in growing urgency. Kendrick gave a slow shake of his head.
“A degenerate he may be, but he's still the son of a noble house with a proper education. Would a man spout a lie — one that any rudimentary verification would expose — in a setting like this? And in such a deliberately inflammatory fashion, no less?”
A snort of laughter escaped him, and he looked thoroughly amused.
“Well, well. The boy played us all for fools.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Think about it. We may now have to reconsider whether that boy's betrayal was ever real in the first place.”
Kendrick let out a hearty guffaw. At his words, the others could only stare in stunned disbelief. Diana added a further explanation, almost as an aside.
“Nothing has actually gone wrong on our end yet. By that logic... it's possible the information Arendt von Eckhart passed to them was trivial. Or perhaps he handed over false intelligence entirely.”
Once the discussion had reached that point, the others could naturally extrapolate further possibilities on their own. Duke Lancelot gave a slow nod.
“Hypothetically speaking... one could even interpret it as a deliberate infiltration, undertaken to unmask those people's identities.”
“Th-that's quite a leap, surely?”
“Of course that's the less likely explanation. But we cannot afford to ignore it either. Until now, the guilt seemed so self-evident that even House Eckhart kept its silence.”
Duke Lancelot offered that answer in reply to someone's doubtful question. If House Eckhart were to intervene in the matter on those grounds, things would grow far more complicated. No parents would quietly stand by and watch their cherished youngest son be put to death in disgrace — no matter how thoroughly he had dragged the family name through the mud.
Yet another objection sputtered up from somewhere.
“Even granting all that... is it not grave enough that he acted without orders, of his own accord, and threw the Imperial Palace into chaos?”
“Hmm. That's not wrong, either, but it's hardly a crime warranting a dungeon cell and the gallows.”
Kendrick replied, stroking his bearded chin. “Of course, we could dismiss every one of these possibilities, toss the boy in a cell, and torture the truth out of him instead. But in my estimation, he wouldn't take that lying down.”
Laughter still lingered in Kendrick's voice. Recalling the look in Arendt's eyes from moments ago, one suspected the man would sooner choose death than comply in such a situation.
Diana picked up where he left off with a light addition.
“And if everything that man said turns out to be true... then we stand to gain far more than we've lost.”
Arendt was still their sole link to a syndicate whose very nature they had yet to grasp. She cast a sidelong glance at Laios.
“Killing one snotty little brat is something we can do any day of the week. Wouldn't you agree, Sir Laios?”
With both knight commanders speaking thus, and Duke Lancelot radiating a tone that sheltered their position, there was effectively no room left for dissent.
Laios still wore his turmoil openly. After a brief pause, he slowly raised his head.
“Laios de Winfried, Commander of the 3rd Knight Order, makes this petition to His Grace. I ask that Arendt von Eckhart be released provisionally into my custody.”
His unusually clear voice filled the courtroom.
“That I failed to guide him properly and drove him to stray — the fault lies in my own inadequacy as Commander.”
A subtle crack bloomed across the faces of the silent onlookers. But Laios brought his statement to a firm close.
“Should any trouble arise from this, the responsibility is mine to bear.”
Diana shrugged, as if she'd expected nothing less. Kendrick let out a short chuckle as well. The knights of the 3rd Order standing at Laios's side looked considerably less than pleased, but they, too, voiced no objection.
A few hours after the trial ended, Arendt was provisionally released and returned to his room in the knights' dormitory. It was proof that his gambit had landed exactly as intended. Thanks to that, he enjoyed his first proper night's sleep in a real bed in what felt like an age.
Waking, Arendt stared blankly at the air. Instead of the yellowed wallpaper of his studio apartment back home, an ornately decorated ceiling met his eyes.
“I was kind of hoping I'd wake up and be back where I belonged.”
Needless to say, no such miracle occurred. Arendt hauled himself up, groaning, and dragged a hand down his face.
“...I genuinely thought I was going to die.”
If looks could kill, he might well have died five more times right there in that courtroom. Hardly surprising, given that he'd done nothing but needle and provoke a crowd of people who all wanted to beat him to death on the spot.
The 3rd Knight Order in particular.
The knights standing behind Laios hadn't bothered to hide their eagerness to leap across the room and slit his throat right then and there. Still, it was fortunate the results hadn't turned out too badly — at the very least, he'd escaped the situation with his neck intact.
Arendt heaved a long sigh, dusted himself off, and rose.
Strictly speaking, Arendt's act of betrayal could be called an attempt that had never come to fruition. The organization on the other side was no collection of fools, after all — an imperial knight who came sidling up to them out of nowhere was, first and foremost, someone to be suspected.
Arendt had known that perfectly well, which was why he had resisted the urge to rush things and instead concentrated on methodically building a relationship of trust. His tail had only been caught when that stage had very nearly run its course. Which meant that nothing of real importance — no genuine imperial intelligence — had yet passed into their hands.
He'd given nothing, so he'd received nothing. That also meant Arendt knew absolutely nothing about them in return. Left to his own devices, there would have been no recourse but the executioner's block. Merely attempting betrayal under a knight's standing was grave enough.
But Lee Su-hyeon was different. He had reread the novel countless times, and so the broad strokes of what came next still lived in his head. So he had gambled — staking his own neck as the wager.
“Never again.”
Even now, the memory made his spine prickle. Arendt, busy fastening his shirt buttons, shook his head to shake off the thought.
Even if the other nobles' backlash grew a little fierce, he was confident he could weather it to a degree. Because Commander Laios had been there.
Summarized, the novel's account of Laios's character went something like this: an upright heart and iron toughness, paired with a resolve that could turn endlessly ruthless toward his enemies. And a childhood trauma — the loss of his family — that made him cherish his comrades far beyond all reason.
That last part was the crucial bit. It was precisely the crack Arendt had banked on.
Laios had not wanted to kill Arendt, his own subordinate. And so Arendt had judged that with proper grounds established, Laios would come to his defense. The calculation had held up reasonably well — the fact that his head was still attached to his shoulders right now was proof enough of that.
Fully dressed in his uniform, Arendt studied his reflection in the mirror with a furrowed brow. The appearance he had never once paid mind to was the very image of Arendt von Eckhart as described in the novel. It seemed the effort of scrubbing off the grime that had clung to him the moment he arrived in this room yesterday had been worth it — his pale face positively glowed.
His snow-white silver hair, reaching to his shoulders, swayed with a healthy luster, and his golden eyes were ones the original Arendt — who took the utmost pride in maintaining his looks — might well have admired.
“What a vain little peacock.”
But there was no way those eyes viewed him favorably now. Having straightened his uniform, Arendt's gaze fell to his wrist. There sat a snow-white silver bracelet that hadn't been there before his imprisonment — an unwelcome gift from Duke Lancelot and the knight commanders.
“Not even a dog gets this treatment.”
His expression soured in an instant. No — frankly, an actual dog's leash might have been preferable.
This was an execution device reserved for criminals deemed flight risks, and the authority to trigger it rested with Laios. One flick of Laios's finger, and the electric shock magic bound into the bracelet would fire. At that point, Arendt would be roasted alive without so much as a squeak, departing this world for good. The device was also rigged to activate the instant he showed any sign of removing or destroying it — meaning that for the foreseeable future, he had no choice but to play the meek, contrite, criminal apprentice knight.
“What kind of nonsense is this? It's not like I actually committed treason.”
Grunting in irritation, Arendt pulled his sleeve down over the bracelet and hid it from view. For now, at least, he had no choice but to live on as Arendt von Eckhart. He would have to remain with the knight order for the time being while searching for a way back to his original world.
I got here somehow, so there's bound to be a way back.
Granted, with a stage light falling on his head, his original body might not be in great shape either — but he decided that was a problem for later. First order of business upon returning home: unleashing one full-throated tirade at the stage manager. That much, at least, would be therapeutic.
With a deep sigh, he faced himself in the mirror yet again.
A face I utterly loathed, too.
He had never imagined he'd come to know it this intimately. Lee Su-hyeon stared with disgruntled eyes at his own reflection — at Arendt, whom he had been playing until a moment ago.
But from here on out, like it or not, the two of them were bound to coexist.
“Keep up the good work, you treacherous bastard.”